Chapter Twenty
Sue
I’d just opened my briefcase to grade some papers when someone pounded on my door.
“Susanne Morelli, I know you’re in there,” Jesse called. “Open the door.”
I scrambled to my feet, already dreading the ambush. Jesse never read the Weekender, but one of the other girls might have. I’d avoided their texts in the past couple of days. I should have known this was going to bite me in the ass.
“Coming!” I called, yanking open the door.
Four women—fully pressed against it—toppled into my apartment like a human avalanche.
“What the hell?”
Doors opened across the hall. Cam poked his head out of Sebastian’s place, and Mrs. Vicars squinted menacingly from behind her bifocals.
“Is everything okay?” Cam stepped into the hallway with a polite smile that barely masked his amusement as he looked at the tangled pile of legs, arms, torsos, and heads.
“I think so. Sorry they disturbed you, Mrs. Vicars.”
The woman snorted and slammed her door shut.
I turned to Cam. “I thought we’d do this another time, but meet my friends. That’s Lily in red, Nikki in black, Ange in mauve, and Jesse in denim. Ladies, this is Cameron Jones.”
Lily was the first to stand, followed by Nikki and Ange.
Ange chuckled. “Nice to meet you, Cam.” She gave him a once-over worthy of a county fair judge examining prize livestock.
Lily and Nikki were staring at him as if they expected him to vanish in a puff of smoke.
Jesse, still sitting on the floor, screwed up her face. “Have we met?”
Cam smiled, walked over to her, and offered her his hand to stand.
“We have, but we were never introduced.” He turned up his thousand watt smile. “Probably you’ve seen me when I visited Sebastian. I actually ran into you coming out of his apartment a few years ago. I had a beard back then.”
Jesse turned the color of bleached linen. “You have me confused with someone else. I’ve never set foot in Sebastian’s place.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, but before I got nosy, Lily interrupted.
“We’re here to take Sue to dinner. Want to come along, Cam?”
The gleam in her eyes promised interrogation techniques worthy of the FBI. Poor Cam. He didn’t know what he might’ve gotten himself into. My friends were even more protective of me than my family.
“I wish, but I’m waiting for a conference call from Australia. Time zones are murder.”
“Another time, then,” Ange said, not bothering to hide her disappointment.
Cam gave them all a charming nod. “It was nice meeting you, ladies. Talk later, Sue.” He gave my hand a quick squeeze, then disappeared into Sebastian’s apartment.
Jesse strode straight into my living room, the others in tow.
“Well, well,” she said, plucking the bottle of wine from my counter. “You finally got a decent vintage. Got a package from home?”
“I did. Anyone else want a glass?”
“Me!” came the unanimous answer.
I opened the cupboard and began handing out wine glasses, forgetting about my ring.
“Holy crap, where did you get that?” Nikki gasped, nearly dropping her wine.
Suddenly, I was surrounded. The girls crowded around me, lifting my left hand to the light.
“Err, I got it from Cam. He bought it this afternoon.”
Nikki beamed. “It’s perfect for you.”
“Where did he get it?” Ange inspected the ring as if she were some kind of expert.
I almost expected her to pull a jeweler’s loupe out of her purse.
I cleared my throat. “We picked it out together at Tiffany’s.”
“No way.” Jesse reached for my hand to get a better look. “That had to cost a mint.”
“Yeah... It did.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re joking. You are not standing here wearing a ring that could cover both our rents for a year. Nobody drops Tiffany money after one date, unless you’ve got some magical powers in the sack.”
Lily cocked her head. “I thought you said he was a computer geek. Did he win the lottery or invent a new crypto currency?”
“He’s not just a sales rep. I thought he was, but it turns out he owns the company, Omega Software.” I turned to Jesse. “And for the record, we didn’t get in the sack, so keep your mind out of the gutter. The ring is not real. I mean, it is real, but…”
I let out a long sigh, looking all four of them in the eyes. I couldn’t lie to them, even if I did have grounds to fabricate a story they would believe—which I didn’t. But these women were like sisters to me, and knew me better than anyone.
“Guys, let’s sit down,” I said.
I refilled their wine glasses and we all sat—the girls squashed together on the sofa—and I sat cross-legged on the floor in front of them, like a defendant facing a jury.
“Here’s the thing.” I took a huge sip of wine. “It’s a lie. Cam and I are faking an engagement.”
Four pairs of eyes stared at me unblinkingly. I reached for the newspaper on the coffee table and passed it to them.
Then I told them everything, from the moment Cam had picked me up last night, to the moment he’d disappeared into Sebastian’s apartment minutes ago.
“Holy shit.” Jesse emptied her wine glass. “You people watched too many movies. I mean, a fake engagement, for real?”
“Well, that’s technically a contradiction of terms,” Lily added, ever the voice of reason.
“But she’s got a point. Susanne, this isn’t a white lie.
It’s a whole wedding aisle of them. I get Cam’s reasoning, but what are you doing?
You need to set some serious boundaries with Mama Morelli before you lose track of where you end and her expectations begin. ”
I shook my head. “You think I don’t know that? This wasn’t some grand plan. Things just... snowballed. It’s not only my family—I’m trying to protect my job. And Cam needs me to rescue him from Britt.”
“Ugh, I remember that bitch.” Nikki crinkled her nose. “All the boys back in Warwick were chasing her like a bitch in heat every time she and her parents came there. Thank God it wasn’t often. Miss Howard didn’t like the countryside.”
“Cam is a big badass piece of man candy,” Ange said, crossing her legs. “It didn’t look to me like he needs you to rescue him. How platonic is this fake engagement?”
I shrugged, staring into my empty glass. “He said he’s attracted to me, so I don’t know. We’ve only had one date. I don’t really have a plan here. But we’ll be together for a few months at least. Things could heat up, I guess.”
Lily shook her head. “I don’t know what to say about this, Sue. This kind of lie has a habit of coming around and biting you in the ass. I’m afraid you’ll get hurt. How do you feel about him?”
I raised my puppy eyes, and they all groaned.
“I’m crazy about him,” I confessed.
“I knew it.” Nikki looked furious. “God, I could kill that son of a bitch Neil for pushing you to do this.”
“Nikki,” I said sternly.
“No, I’m serious. That guy is a plague. Mom told me all about Neil’s and Sally’s war.
The only way he’s going to be rich again is if he marries someone enterprising, and he always had a thing for your daddy’s vineyards.
He’s bragging that he’ll have you eating out of his hand soon.
I really want to see that moron get what he deserves.
” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “I might just tell Sally how to get rid of him without leaving a single trace.”
I shook my head. “You scare the bejesus out of me sometimes.”
She grinned. “You’re safe, as long as you stay on my good side.”
Lily laughed. “I have to remember not to piss you off.”
Ange blew out a breath. “So you’re in love with him, huh? How does he feel about you?”
“I have no idea. We didn’t have time to delve into it.
He did imply several times that he’s been interested in me for a while.
He said he asked Sebastian about me.” I zeroed in on Jesse.
“Speaking of Sebastian, Cam said he saw you coming out of his apartment a few years ago. What’s all that about, Jessica? ”
Like a deer in the headlights, Jesse looked at me, then at the expectant eyes turned to her. She hunched her shoulders.
“It wasn’t anything memorable. That was the night I met Sebastian.”
She’d hoped we would stop there. Silly girl.
“And?” Nikki prompted. “If Cam remembered it, it had to be memorable.”
Jesse sighed dramatically. “Fine. So, this was about four years ago. My dad was really sick, and I was staying over to help him out. One night, it’s frigging midnight, and suddenly, Sebastian’s music starts blasting through the floor.
So I stormed up the stairs in my pajamas to tell him to cut it out.
I pounded on the door, which, it turned out, wasn’t locked. ”
“Oh no,” Lily breathed.
“Oh yes. I called out—no answer. The music was coming from the back, so I headed down the hall. And that’s when I walked into the most cursed scene of my life.”
Nikki’s eyes went wide. “Please tell me it was porn.”
“I wish it had been porn. No. I stepped into the bedroom, and there he was. Spread-eagle on the bed, buck naked, handcuffed to the headboard with fuzzy red handcuffs, his junk covered in whipped cream with a frigging cherry on top.”
We erupted with laughter, probably louder than Sebastian’s music blaring on that faithful night.
“Stop it!” Lily clutched her side. “You walked in on him naked?”
“I only wish he’d been naked in a normal way,” Jesse added dryly. “He started begging me to pass him the key to the handcuffs that had fallen on the floor. I yanked the stereo cord out of the wall, dropped the key right into the whipped cream sundae zone, and walked out.”
“Oh my God,” Ange wheezed. “You just left him there?”
“He was still yelling when I shut the door. Don’t leave me like this! It’s not what it looks like!”
Nikki was crying actual tears. “This is the best thing I’ve ever heard.”
“So where does Cam fit in?” I managed between gasps.
“I bumped into him on the way out. He gave me a once-over and this slow grin, clearly assuming I’d just finished redecorating Sebastian’s manhood. So I gave him the finger and marched back downstairs to my dad’s. Thank God he never heard a thing.”
That broke us all. Even Jesse was doubled over laughing by the end.
I wiped a tear. “Okay, your story totally beats my porn night. And now I want dessert. Let’s order something with whipped cream.”